Our program has used a scientifically proven technique called mindfulness to teach self-awareness, focus, impulse control, and empathy to over 18,000 children and 750 teachers in 70 schools, about 70% serving predominantly low-income children.

We have conducted training and workshops for over 2,500 public and private school parents, teachers, therapists, and other professionals in education and social work.

Catch Terragno Roshi on the Radio and Online.

“The Mystical Positivist” is a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP FM 107.3 Occidental, CA. “The Mystical Positivist,” is dedicated to the application of reason in the pursuit of spiritual practice and development. I look to this format to be challenging and a bit controversial in that the New Age community tends to have an overly romantic picture of the gritty pursuit of spiritual transformation. My thesis is that rationality is in no way the antithesis of deep mystical experience, in fact, I assert that it is a necessary ally – hence the
blog name “Mystical Positivist.”

Talks Online

Many Rivers Books and Tea supports spiritual practice by hosting spiritual talks, classes, and special events with speakers from every religious tradition. In addition to Special Events and Ongoing Events, check out the schedule for our popular Thursdays at Many Rivers series in our store in Sebastopol, California, or download and listen to past talks.

Daniel Terragno, Roshi,
Original date: Thursday, September 30, 2010

LINKS

Sweeping Zen: Has a vast array of content to support Zen students to deepen their practice. Sweeping Zen has excellent videos, letters, talks and articles on Zen Buddhism and its practice from leaders of in the Zen community around the world.

The Zen Site: “This is a site dedicated to a better understanding of Zen Buddhism. Here you will find access to a wide variety of materials about Zen Buddhism, its history, teachings, and philosophy as well as some critiques of Zen. There are also some links to non-Zen topics which you may find interesting. Please browse around.”

Featured Blogs

Monkey Mind – Reflections on religion, politics & culture. And mostly in that order. Although I’m also easily distracted by shiny things…

by – James Ford

Clear View Blog – I have been thinking about building a Clear View blog for the last two years. The idea is to create a place where engaged Buddhists can meet and share thoughts about whatever comes to mind.

Alan Senauke is Senior Advisor to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, vice abbot of Berkeley Zen Center and committed to an engaged practice and social change..

Transcending Hell: Manifesting a Zen Spiritual Path in Recovery from AddictionTaiyu John Robertson

“The following is part of a book Taiyu is working on about the Zen path through recovery. It is unedited and offered with no frills—may it be of help and inspiration to those of you actively struggling with addiction.”

Baizhang’s Fox is one of the great koans, collected as the second case in the Wumenguan, the Gateless Gate. Baizhang’s is an influential kōan story in the Zen tradition dating back as early as 1036, when it appeared in the Chinese biographical history T’ien-sheng kuang-teng lu. It was also in The Gateless Gate (Japanese: Mumonkan (無門関?), a 13th century collection of 48 kōans compiled by the Chinese monk Wumen.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) combines cognitive and behavioral therapy, incorporating methodologies from various practices including Eastern mindfulness techniques. It is the first evidenced based protocol for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. DBT was designed to help those who suffered from chronic suicidal feelings. It has evolved into a treatment that helps those in difficult life situations and deep emotional suffering transform their lives and build a life they enjoy. The skills are powerful tools to increase happiness for all people. DBT is steeped in the Zen tradition. Its creator Dr. Linehan who is a long-time Zen practitioner and studied with a Diamond Sangha Teacher (Pat Hawk Roshi).

If happiness is an inner state, influenced by external conditions but not dependent on them, how can we achieve it? Ricard will examine the inner and outer factors that increase or diminish our sense of well-being, dissect the underlying mechanisms of happiness, and lead us to a way of looking at the mind itself based on his book, Happiness: A Guide to Life’s Most Important Skill and from the research in neuroscience on the effect of mind-training on the brain.

Speaker Bio: Matthieu Ricard, a gifted scientist turned Buddhist monk, is a best selling author, translator, and photographer. He has lived and studied in the Himalayas for the last 35 years.

Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a community of primarily dharma practitioners established to support socially engaged efforts of visionaries of compassionate social justice and dharma-based organizations for social change. Buddhist Peace Fellow Ship focus’s on mutual liberation. Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a leader in socially engaged Buddhism, cultivating peace through sharing with others decades of experience, providing donors who value peacemaking to other organizations, and educating the public with dharma-centered views of social justice.

“This website is dedicated to all political prisoners in Tibet; the site is maintained by the International Tibet Network’s Political Prisoner Campaign Working Group, which has devised and is promoting a range of actions in support of Tibetan political prisoners. ”

When the world is sick we are sick too.
We are intimately tied to one another.
We sit on our meditation cousions to engage fully with life.
Leap further then the top of a 10,000 foot pole.
Right now we meet the whole universe in each action.

“Your vows direct you to the deepest experience of the real world–the world of inter-being. So do bells, clappers, birdsong, and even the helicopter rattling overhead. So do mountains and clouds and poinciana trees. So does the whiff of incense or the touch of your clothing to your skin when the wind blows. These experiences can reveal inter-being directly, or they can remind you of your vows — and your vows in turn can help you to be open to experience.”

The “Zen” in our name reflects our approach of bringing mindfulness and compassion to our care for the dying, their caregivers, and the bereaved. This approach is grounded in the 2,500 year-old teachings of the Buddha, especially as they relate to coping with death and dying. The Buddha taught that life is happiest for those who learn to meet change, loss, and the eventuality of death with equanimity and kindness. Doing so can enhance one’s understanding and love of life.

A nice site for basic Zen Instruction: Zen is a practice of direct, unmediated awareness. It is not an intellectual exercise to develop a philosophy or theology. It is not belief in the contents of written works. It is not following a code of conduct. It is not an emotional catharsis. It is not performing good works.

The mission of the Zen Peacemakers is to alleviate suffering by: developing holistic social service projects that help individuals, families and communities; promoting and supporting Socially Engaged Buddhism throughout the West; and inspiring and training a new generation in this way of service as Zen practice.The Three Tenets serve as the foundation for the Zen Peacemakers’ work and practice. Using the Three Tenets as an orientation transforms service into spiritual practice. Specifically, these practices suspend separation and hierarchy, and open direct encounter
between equals as the spirit and style of the services offered.The Three Tenets: Entering the stream of Socially Engaged Spirituality, I vow to live a life of:

Not-knowing, thereby giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe

John Daido Loori, author, artist, Zen Master was the founder and abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York. Under Daido Loori’s direction, Zen Mountain Monastery has grown to be one of the leading Zen monasteries in America, widely noted for its unique way of integrating art and Zen practice.

Born in central Vietnam in 1926 he joined the monkshood at the age of sixteen. The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and remain meditating in the monasteries, or to help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastation of the war. Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, helping to found the “engaged Buddhism” movement. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.